Light mode only. No telemetry. Every command shown before it runs.
Auto-hide Dock
Show Hidden Files
Show Path Bar
Bounce Animation
Show Recent Apps
207 shown
Dock
com.apple.dock
22 settings
Auto-hide Dock
bool
Hide the Dock when not hovering over it. Frees up screen space.
Shipped in Mac OS X 10.0 (2001) for users on 12-inch PowerBooks who couldn't afford to lose 64px of vertical space. Apple's compromise: keep the Dock prominent but make it dismissible so it didn't feel mandatory.
Show recently used apps in a separate section of the Dock.
Added in macOS Mojave (2018) as Apple's answer to a long-standing user complaint: "I open the same 3 apps via Spotlight every day, why doesn't the Dock learn?" Many users immediately disable it because it makes the Dock layout shift unpredictably.
A signature Mac OS X eye-candy feature meant to demo Quartz, Apple's new GPU-accelerated graphics layer. It exists less to solve a problem and more to prove the OS could do smooth real-time scaling at 60fps in 2001.
Bouncing icon animation when opening apps. Disabling feels snappier.
The bounce solved a real problem in 2001: cold-launching an app on a 400 MHz G4 could take 5+ seconds with no feedback. The bounce told you "yes, I heard your click." On modern SSDs apps launch faster than the animation finishes — so power users disable it.
Animation when minimizing windows. "genie" (default) or "scale" (faster).
The genie effect was Steve Jobs' personal demo at the Mac OS X unveiling — he insisted on it as proof the new compositor could warp pixels in real time. "Scale" was added later as the boring-but-fast alternative for people who actually use their computers.
Action for top-left hot corner. 0=none, 2=Mission Control, 4=Desktop, 5=Screensaver, 10=Sleep Display.
Hot corners come from Apple's After Dark / screensaver heritage in the late 80s — corners were "free real estate" no app could click. Apple kept them as power-user shortcuts because they require zero screen pixels and zero menu space.
Reveal hidden files and folders (dotfiles like .git, .env). Essential for developers.
When Mac OS X exposed BSD Unix to end users, Apple inherited Unix's dotfile convention — anything starting with `.` is hidden. The default protects regular users from a Home folder full of `.bash_history` clutter; the toggle exists for the developers Apple knew would need it.
Display the full path at the bottom of Finder windows. Great for navigation.
Mac OS X hid filesystem paths from users on principle — Apple believed people should think in documents and folders, not paths. The path bar was added back in 10.5 Leopard (2007) when Apple grudgingly accepted that even non-developers needed to know "where am I."
Show the complete POSIX path (/Users/you/...) in the Finder window title bar.
The leading underscore is the giveaway: this is an internal Apple debug flag that engineers added for their own use, never officially shipped in System Preferences. It survived because power users discovered it and it never seemed worth the effort to remove.
Warn before changing a file extension. Prevents accidental file type changes.
Classic Mac OS used hidden type/creator codes instead of extensions, so renaming "report" to "report.pdf" did nothing. When OS X switched to extension-based file types, Apple added this warning to prevent decades of Mac users from accidentally breaking files via Finder rename.
Always show file extensions (.txt, .pdf, etc.). Helps identify file types at a glance.
Apple's default-off stance is a holdover from the type/creator era, where extensions were ugly Windows clutter. Security researchers eventually pushed Apple to make this togglable: hidden extensions are how malware ships ".pdf.app" disguised as a PDF.
Typing two spaces inserts a period. Can interfere with coding.
Lifted directly from iOS, where the tiny on-screen keyboard makes punctuation slow to reach. On a Mac with a full keyboard the shortcut is unnecessary — and actively harmful in code editors where double-spaces are intentional.
Replace -- with em dash. Breaks code and markdown.
Borrowed from desktop publishing — typographers consider straight double-hyphens an amateur mistake and em-dashes the professional choice. Apple enabled it everywhere assuming most text is prose. It's one of the most-disabled settings on developer machines because `--flag` becomes `—flag`.
Replace straight quotes with curly quotes. Breaks code.
Same typographic-correctness reflex as smart dashes — Apple wants your prose to look like a published book. The cost: every developer who pastes code from Notes into a terminal gets `"hello"` instead of `"hello"` and watches the shell choke.
Set to "Dark" for dark mode. Delete this key for light mode.
Dark Mode shipped in macOS Mojave (2018), 8 years after iOS users first asked. Apple resisted because dark UI on a non-OLED Mac display saves no battery — the only argument was aesthetics. They eventually caved when developer tools and creative apps (Xcode, Logic) had been shipping their own dark modes for years.
How fast keys repeat when held (lower = faster). Default: 6. Fast: 2. Fastest: 1.
System Preferences caps the slider at 2 — but the underlying preference accepts 1 (twice as fast). Apple kept the lower bound visible because most users would find 1 disorienting. Vim users disagreed and discovered the override.
Hold a key to show accent menu (e.g., e -> e, e, e). Disable for faster key repeat.
Direct port from iOS in OS X Lion (2011), where holding a key shows accent variants. On Mac it conflicts with the Unix tradition of "hold a key to repeat it" — disabling this is the single most common tweak for anyone who used a Mac before 2011.
"Automatic" (default), "WhenScrolling" (hide until scroll), "Always" (always visible).
Auto-hidden scrollbars arrived with OS X Lion (2011) to match iOS' clean look. Accessibility advocates pushed back hard — invisible scrollbars hide the fact that content is scrollable at all. The "Always" option is Apple's concession to that complaint.
Content moves with finger direction (like a touchscreen). Disable for traditional scrolling.
Apple inverted the default in OS X Lion (2011) to match iOS — scrolling on a touchscreen, your finger and the content move together. The toggle exists because every PC user who ever sat at a Mac immediately tried to scroll the wrong way.
Folder where screenshots are saved. Default: ~/Desktop.
The Desktop default predates the modern era — back when Macs had 9" CRT screens and no cloud sync, the Desktop was the obvious "I'll deal with it later" pile. Today most users redirect screenshots to ~/Downloads or a dedicated folder to keep their wallpaper visible.
writedefaults write com.apple.screencapture type -string <value>
com.apple.screencapturetype
Disable Window Shadow
bool
Remove the drop shadow from window screenshots. Cleaner for documentation.
macOS captures window screenshots with a transparent margin and a soft drop shadow to make them look elegant standalone. Technical writers and designers hate the margin — it adds ~80px of empty pixels and breaks tight documentation layouts. This flag was added for them.
Prefix for screenshot filenames. Default: "Screenshot".
readdefaults read com.apple.screencapture name
writedefaults write com.apple.screencapture name -string <value>
com.apple.screencapturename
Safari
com.apple.Safari
14 settings
Show Develop Menu
bool
Show the Develop menu in Safari menu bar. Essential for web developers.
Hidden by default because the Develop menu lets you disable JavaScript, override user agents, and inject CSS — fine for developers, dangerous for the average user who might click "Disable Images" and never figure out why the web is broken.
Automatically open "safe" files after downloading. Disabling is more secure.
A 2004 convenience that became a security disaster: Safari's definition of "safe" included disk images, which attackers learned to weaponize. Apple still ships it on, but every macOS hardening guide ever written tells you to turn it off first.
Prevent .DS_Store files on network drives. Highly recommended for shared drives.
.DS_Store is Finder's per-folder metadata cache (icon positions, view settings). It's harmless locally but on shared SMB/AFP drives it litters every folder a Mac user touches — Windows colleagues see weird hidden files everywhere. Apple added this opt-out after years of sysadmin complaints.
Open new documents as rich text (RTF). Disable for plain text (.txt).
TextEdit ships in rich-text mode because Apple positions it as the free Pages-lite for casual users. Developers want the opposite — a plain text scratchpad — and disabling this turns TextEdit into a basic notepad that won't silently mangle code with formatting.
Prevent other apps from reading keystrokes in Terminal. More secure.
A defense against keyloggers — when on, macOS routes keystrokes directly to Terminal, bypassing event taps that other apps could use to snoop on your typing. The same flag exists in Terminal-equivalents (iTerm2) for the same reason: shells are where you type passwords.
Apple's most controversial window-management bet of the 2020s — shipped in macOS Ventura (2022) as a "modern" alternative to Spaces and Mission Control. Adoption stayed niche; most users tried it once, found it disorienting, and turned it off. The toggle survives because Apple is still figuring out where to take it.
Minimize animations and motion effects. Easier on motion-sensitive users.
Added in iOS 7 (2013) after a wave of complaints that the new parallax effects triggered nausea and vertigo. Apple ported it to macOS for users with vestibular disorders — but it's now widely used by anyone who finds Mission Control's zoom-out animation distracting.
Tap the trackpad to click instead of pressing down.
Off by default because early trackpads had high false-tap rates — your palm resting on the pad would register as clicks. Modern Force Touch trackpads have palm rejection good enough that most users enable this and never look back, but Apple keeps the conservative default for upgraders.
Automatically install macOS updates. Disable for manual control.
Apple's security team pushed hard for this default after watching the WannaCry-era PC ransomware wave — most victims were running unpatched OSes. Power users disable it because macOS minor updates have historically broken kernel extensions, audio drivers, and developer tools without warning.
Allow guest users to log in. Disable for security.
Originally a 2008 feature for shared family Macs and lab computers. Apple later repurposed it as a Find My Mac honeypot — a thief who steals your Mac is more likely to log in as Guest (which can connect to Wi-Fi) than to wipe the drive, letting Find My Mac phone home.
Tap the trackpad surface to click instead of pressing down.
Off by default because early trackpads had terrible palm rejection — resting your hand on the pad would fire clicks constantly. Modern Force Touch trackpads solved this, but Apple kept the safe default for the millions of Mac users who never touch System Preferences.
Right-click by clicking a trackpad corner. 0=off, 1=bottom-left, 2=bottom-right.
A holdover from the one-button era. Before two-finger clicking existed, corners were the only way to right-click on a trackpad without an external mouse. Apple kept the option for users who built the muscle memory.
Move windows and select text by dragging with three fingers. Hidden in Accessibility settings.
Was a standard trackpad gesture until Apple buried it in Accessibility preferences in El Capitan (2015) to make room for the new Force Touch "force click to drag" model. Power users revolted — three-finger drag is faster and more reliable, so Apple kept it alive in the accessibility ghetto.
Content keeps scrolling after you lift your fingers, like a spinning wheel slowing down.
Ported from the iPhone, where momentum scrolling was a core part of the original 2007 "inertial scroll" patent. On Mac, it makes two-finger scrolling feel physical rather than mechanical.
Double-tap with two fingers to zoom in on content. 0=off, 1=on.
Another iPhone transplant — double-tap to zoom was the defining gesture of the original iPhone demo in 2007. On Mac it fills the same role: quickly zoom in on a section of a webpage or PDF without fiddling with pinch gestures.
Pinch with four fingers for Launchpad, spread for Desktop. 0=off, 2=on.
Designed as the macOS equivalent of pressing the iPhone home button — a physical gesture that takes you "home" to Launchpad. Most people discover it by accident and either love it or immediately want to know how to turn it off.
Feel a click when pressing the Force Touch trackpad. The trackpad doesn't physically move — it's all haptic illusion.
The Force Touch trackpad (2015) replaced the mechanical hinge with a solid glass surface and a Taptic Engine. Apple bet that a simulated click would feel real enough — and they were right. Most people never realize their trackpad doesn't actually click.
Display the main Control Center icon (toggle switches) in the menu bar.
Internally called "BentoBox" because the grid of toggles looks like a Japanese bento box with compartments. Shipped in macOS Big Sur (2020) as a direct lift from iOS Control Center — Apple's bet that iPhone muscle memory would transfer to the Mac.
"OneButton" for single-click everywhere, "TwoButton" for right-click on the right side.
The Magic Mouse has no visible buttons — it's a single sheet of glass. Apple defaults to one-button mode to preserve the iconic simplicity, but under the hood the surface is divided left/right for two-button mode.
Enable voice dictation. Press the microphone key or Fn twice to start dictating.
Dictation arrived on Mac in OS X Mountain Lion (2012), a year after Siri debuted on iPhone. Early versions sent audio to Apple servers; on-device dictation didn't arrive until macOS Ventura (2022), finally making it fast enough for real use.
The catalog is the map. The app is the steering wheel — it reads your current values, lets you flip any of them, and keeps an undoable history of every change.